A Fitz Without A Simmons
by fitzsimmons-with-prosciutto
Summary: Simmons doesn't survive after she jumps out of the plane, and Fitz is left to deal with it by himself. Trigger Warning (this is really really sad guys)


**Day 1**

- JEMMA!- he yelled, and in the back of his scientific mind, he thought it would be the last thing she would ever hear from him (_she can't hear you, there's too much wind_, his mind whispered. Shut up, he thought). Her name. Didn't sound right. He should've said something better. He should have said _it__._

When she jumped his heart felt like stopping, and he wondered if it could be possible that the biology lessons back from the Academy were wrong, if maybe your heart could do it. He didn't know. _She_ was the biologist.

When Ward took the parachute off of him, he felt mad for a second (it was _his_ job to save Simmons, it was _his_ job to be there, every second, it was _his_ Simmons, not Ward's), before remembering that Ward could probably get to her faster. Then he practically pushed him off the plane, because he wasn't moving fast enough to _save_ her.

His throat felt weird. Burnt. He didn't think much of it. Then he realized he was still screaming. This time it wasn't her name. He was screaming "**I love you**".

He felt a hand on his left shoulder. Skye was there. She didn't look very well.

- Fitz...- she said, and her voice was a lot more watery than he would have liked it.- You are standing too close to the edge. Come back.

"_Was I?_"- he thought.

It felt like it was so far.

They finally got there, and Ward was holding her out of the water (he didn't like it, they were too close). Coulson was pacing, and that wasn't doing him much good. He also felt like pacing but Simmons hated it when he did that, so he didn't.

Ward was on the plane now, and he was holding her, but she wasn't moving.

She wasn't moving.

Why wasn't she _moving?_

Skye sobbed. Once, then again, and one last time.

Ward laid her down on the floor, and he felt so mad at that, because what the hell did he think he was doing? That's Jemma, you can't just put her on the _floor_, when she wakes up she's going to be extremely mad at you and...

It downed on him.

Oh God.

Oh _God_.

He moved faster than he ever thought he could.

- Fitz...- Coulson's voice sounded distant. Weird. They were merely 3 meters away from each other.

He knelt beside her and her skin was so _cold_.

- Jemma.- he said, and his voice sounded different.- Jemma wake up. Wake _up_. Come on, it's not the time to be playing games right now. You need to help me with that new experiment, remember? You promised. You _promised_, Jemma! _Wake up!_

This was all wrong, _all wrong_. Jemma never smelled like that (she smelled of vanilla and green apple and he _loved_ it), and her skin always felt positively warmer and her hair wasn't the way she liked and her eyes were closed and he hated it.

- Jemma...- he said, and he tried to feel her pulse but it wasn't there, but he didn't worry much because he never did that right and she always laughed because of it, so he smiled and waited for her to tell him how was the right way to do it but she didn't.

- Where are the doctors?- he asked, starting to panic, because Ward already had a doctor taking his pulse and flashing his eyes with a tiny little lantern.

- Fitz, she's...

- WHERE ARE THE DOCTORS?- he yelled this time, getting up.

Skye looked shock, May didn't look at him and Coulson looked so terribly sorry. He should be. The bloody doctors were taking too long and that was not admissible.

- Fitz, she's dead.- Skye said trying to reach for his hand.

- Don't say that!- he had intended to sound mad, but his voice came out the wrong way and it broke on the last part so he just sounded like a little boy mad at his parents.

- Fitz, calm down.- Coulson warned him.

- What did you do to her?- he turned to Ward.

- What?- he answered.

- What did you do to Jemma?- he sounded angry and dangerous and he wished she was there to see him act like that, because she would be proud that he was standing his ground, like she always told him to do at the Academy.

- I jumped out of a plane to catch her!- Ward sounded insulted and Fitz couldn't possibly take it any longer.

- WELL YOU WEREN'T FAST ENOUGH _WERE YOU?_

- Fitz, calm down, please.- Skye pleaded.

- Don't tell me to calm down!- he shouted her way.- She's _dead!_- there it was, he said it out loud. There was no going back now.- She's _dead_ and who will help me fix the lab now? Who will sing the periodic table song with me? JEMMA'S _DEAD_ AND WHO THE BLOODY HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO LOVE NOW?

He knelt down and hugged her tighter than he ever had before, but she wasn't hugging him back and it just made him cry.

- I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Jemma, so sorry, so sorry. Please come back to me. Please, please, please, _please! _I love you and I'm so sorry, I'm _so sorry._

- For Christ's sake someone sedate the poor boy.- he heard May saying but he didn't care one bit.

He felt a needle on his neck but he didn't care because he was still pleading and apologizing and telling her he loved her and he would never stop, because the pain was unbearable and there was nothing else he could say, and maybe if he begged for long enough some deity would bring her back (he didn't care which one, as long as he could look into her lovely brown eyes one more time and tell her with all his heart that he _**loved**_ her and that he couldn't live without her and he didn't feel like trying, to be honest).

He went out mid-sentence.

"We have to warn her father." was the last thing he heard.

**Day 2**

He woke up on his bed and for one second he didn't know what was happening or why Simmons hadn't woke him up with hot chocolate like she used to everyday.

And then he remembered.

He never thought he would cry so _loudly._

**Day 3**

He didn't go to the funeral. _No one_ went to the funeral, actually.

He never felt so mad at Coulson.

- Why?- he asked, and everyone looked surprised that he had actually spoken. It had been a few days since he pronounced his last sentence.

- We can't jeopardize the mission.- Coulson said, at least with the decency to sound sorry.

- I don't give a rat's arse about the bloody _mission!_- he screamed. He felt powerless more than he wanted to, these last few days.- I am going to her funeral.

- Fitz, need I remind you that...

- She's _dead!_- he yelled again. Why didn't they _listen_ to him?

She always listened to what he said.

- She is.- Ward agreed.- But she wouldn't have wanted you to lose it like this.

How dared _Ward_, of all people, think he knew the _first_ thing about what she wanted?

He punched him.

It hurted his hand, but _God_, didn't it feel _marvelous?_

Ward looked shocked at him, a bit mad, but he just nodded and turned his back to walk away.

- None of you know what she wanted. _None_.- he said in a clarifying tone.

He went to his room and fell to his bed the same way she fell out of the plane: hopelessly.

**Day 4**

Skye tried to talk to him.

He sent her away with only a look.

He was getting really good at this, sending people away.

Not talking.

He chuckled when he reminded of her telling him that he needed to add a few things to his "Capable of" form.

He stop smiling when he remembered why: he had just made her a sandwich and she said it didn't taste horrible.

He missed her so bad he could actually feel it in his heart and in his brain and in the air around him the missing parts of her.

**Day 5**

He didn't fancy talking when he knew she wouldn't be there to complete his sentences.

He didn't fancy living when he knew she wouldn't be beside him every step of the way.

**Day 7**

He went to the lab and broke everything.

Every microscope, every petri dish, every erlenmeyer, every safety goggle, everything.

He stood in the middle of the chaos and waited and waited and waited for her to come in and say "Fitz! What do you think you are doing?" and then she would proceed to taking his hand and asking in the most heartshattering way "Are you hurt?" and then he would say he wasn't, and she would push one of the Durham tubes sets and giggle and look up at him and say "this is actually really fun, Fitz." and they would finish wrecking everything _together_, and they would get in trouble _together_, because she would _never_ leave him alone, and they would go to his room _together_, and they would lean in for a kiss _together_, and they would sleep _together_, and they would _live_ together.

She didn't show up.

He smashed the Durham tubes with his hands and walked up the stairs with his hands bleeding.

She didn't show up with the first-aid kit either.

**Day 8**

- Fitz!- Coulson yelled. He didn't get up the bed.- Care to explain what the hell happened to the lab?

He didn't answer.

Coulson went away eventually.

His hands were tied with pieces of the ripped sheets.

He didn't know where she kept the bloody first aid kit.

He never bothered asking. He never thought he wouldn't have her beside him one day.

How bloody **stupid** could he be?

**Day 9**

He woke up with noises in the room next to his.

Her room.

His heart almost fell to the ground with hope and he jumped out of the bed so quickly he tripped, but when he finally opened the door all he saw were three strangers packing her things, touching all that was dear to her, _making fun_ of how many periodic tables she had in her wardrobe.

- Get out.- he said, his eyes red and his fists aching to punch any of those who continued there.

- Excuse me lad?- one of the man said, and his accent sounded like hers.

- Get out of her room _now_.- he said once more.

- We are Level 5 boy, and we received orders to...

- I'm Level 9.- he lied. She hated when he lied.- And I'm telling you to get out of her room. Now.

The three of them looked confused for a second, before leaving the room.

After 10 seconds, he heard Coulson's voice:

- You are not Level 9.

- I already said I'm sorry.- he replied.

Coulson didn't ask to whom he had said that. He knew the answer.

- We need to clear her room Fitz.

He didn't answer. His eyes were stuck on the periodic tables scattered on her bed. He gave her _every single one_ of them, since their first day at the Academy (the pink one, the colours starting to fade) to the one he had given her one month ago, from a gift shop (it had tiny little sunflowers, and she _loved_ sunflowers).

He didn't know she had kept them all.

For some reason, it brought tears to his eyes.

**Day 10**

The periodic tables were secured in the drawer of his nightstand.

He packed everything and sent it away to her parents.

Except for her favourite jumper, that was inside his wardrobe.

And her keychain. It was now his.

And all the pictures of the both of them. They are now burned.

Except for one, the one were she's hugging him from behind, with her hair for some reason out of the ponytail, and she's smiling in a way that makes his heart hurt, and she's got his safety goggles on, and they are too big for her, and his jacket too and she was pretending to be him, and he is just there, and he remembers the feeling of her hands around his chest, and the smell of her hair, and the sound of her laugh, and the warmth of her skin, and the _longing_ of his heart, and he turns just the slightest bit to hug her back, and the flash of Skye's camera blinds him for a fleeting second and then she's no longer in his arms, and his goggles are on the counter, and her laugh is fading and she's taking the jacket off and she says:

- God Fitz, this jacket is extremely hot, how can you manage not to melt inside this?

And he didn't even _like_ the jacket, it was indeed too hot, but from then on it was his favourite.

He kept her notepad too. He didn't read it, but he kept it. He missed her handwriting.

_**He missed her.**_

**Day 11**

They fixed the lab.

He fought away the need to break it all again.

**Day 12**

He went to the kitchen and made himself a sandwich, prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella with a hint of homemade pesto aioli.

He took one bite and threw it away.

Didn't taste the same as the ones she did.

**Day 15**

He heard voices coming from the lab.

He didn't bother to check who was there until he realized that maybe someone was taking her experiments out of their places.

He ran down the stairs in his pajamas and burst in there.

Coulson, May, Skye and Ward were there, and a girl.

She had his back turned to him, and he couldn't _breathe_ for a second, because she had the right height, the right weight, the right haircolour.

- _Simmons_...- he said, and his voice sounded so different from before, so disused, he wondered if she would recognize it.- You are _back_.

He was almost crying.

- Oh _God_, no one told him?- Skye said.

The girl turned around.

It wasn't Jemma.

It felt like he had been punched. A thousand times.

- Fitz... What are you doing here?- Coulson asked a bit puzzled. He hadn't come out of his room in days.

- Who's she?- he replied.

- Oh, my bad!- the girl said. She was American, probably from New York. He hated it.- I'm Lucy Stuart. Your new lab partner!- she was so excited. He felt like _dying._

- Lucy, maybe you should stop talking.- Skye said.

Lucy looked confused, but she did so.

- We didn't expect you to be here Fitz. We would've said something.- Ward continued.

- This is our lab.- Fitz said. His voice was filled with hurt and betrayal and he just wanted her back.- _Our_ lab. _Fitz-Simmons' _lab.

- Fitz, you can't expect us to- Coulson started, but he didn't let him finish.

- Don't take this away from me too.- he whispered.

No one said anything for a few seconds.

- I'm sorry, Fitz. It's not your call.- Coulson finally let out.

Fitz felt like mourning another loss.

- Hey, don't be so sad.- the girl, Lucy, said. He saw Skye trying to shut her up, but she wasn't fast enough.- We can be a good team too, like you and the girl that left. We can be Fitz-Stuart!- he heard everyone holding their breaths- Sounds even more professional than _Fitz-Sim_-

- Don't _ever_ say that again.- he said, his eyes meeting hers for the first time. They were green, and they felt so wrong he felt _sick_.- We are _not_ friends, we will _never_ be friends and we will most definitely never be "_Fitz-Stuart_", because you are not _Jemma_, you will never _be_ Jemma, and you wouldn't be _one tenth_ as good as Jemma at anything even if you tried your _whole life._ You are not as smart as Jemma, you are not as clever as Jemma, you are not as funny as Jemma and you weren't even supposed to be here, if _**I**_ had worked faster, if _**I**_ had find the vac- _anti-serum_ faster, if _**I**_ had opened the bloody door faster, if **I** had jumped after her. This is not your lab, this will never be your lab, and you should _leave_, right now, because if you touch _anything_, anything _at all_, if you mess with the way she arranged the place, _I will kill you_.

He didn't stay to see the reaction he would get. He turned his back and walked up to his room.

He hugged her jumper and fell asleep.

**Day 16**

He went down to the lab. It was empty, and he never felt so relieved.

He looked over to her counter.

He felt dizzy for a second.

**Day 17**

He went back to the lab.

He flushed all the experiments down the drain.

His first, then hers.

His hands were shaking but he didn't give it much thought.

**Day 20**

He went into her room. It was empty and it didn't feel like she was ever there.

He slept on her bed that night.

**Day 21**

Coulson called him. They "_needed to talk_".

He sat down on the sofa and waited.

- Fitz. We need to talk about this.- Coulson didn't look comfortable.

- I don't know what you are talking about.- he answered.

- Yes, you do. You threatened to _kill_ a girl if she touched Simmons' stuff.

He didn't answer.

Coulson sighed.

- Look, Fitz, we need you back pal. So you either put yourself together or...

- Or what?

- _Or_ we will have to pull you off the team.

He got up and went to her room.

**Day 22**

He moved his stuff to her room.

He wasn't using his anyway.

Skye looked at him with sorrow in her eyes.

**Day 23**

He asked Ward to teach him how to fight.

Ward was almost saying "no" when he added.

- _Please_. I can't go back to the lab now.

Ward nodded.

He didn't add that she once said that she would love to learn how to punch things and actually make some damage.

**Day 24**

- Fitz, _maybe_ we should call it a day...

- I'm fine.- he said, getting back up.

- Yeah, okay, but I'm not. I've been tossing you aside for hours now. I'm starting to feel pretty bad.- Ward indeed looked like he was regretting his choices.

- I still don't know how to fight.

- Fitz, your hands are bleeding. Your nose is _also_ bleeding, you have cuts on your legs and your shoulders are starting to turn purple. I'm not going to fight you anymore.

- It doesn't hurt.

- Of course it hur-

- I'm used to _pain_, Ward. It doesn't bloody _hurt_. _Nothing_ hurts anymore. I'm numb.

Ward was silent for a minute. And then he sighed.

- Hands up. We are trying the "Defense Against Upper-Cut Punch" again.

**Day 25**

_All_ his muscles were screaming.

He smiled.

Pain made him forget about her for a while.

**Day 32**

He kicked and defended and punched and, suddenly, Ward was on the ground, and his foot was on his neck.

- _Jesus_ Fitz! Where the hell did _that_ come from?

- I'm a quick learner.- he smiled, before reminding that she used to call him that.

He punched Ward again, and he couldn't think of her anymore.

**Day 35**

He went to the lab and mixed different things, until it was perfect.

It smelled like vanilla and green apple and it made him feel warm inside.

It smelled just like her.

He made 12 candles, and lit them all in the lab.

He spent hours there.

- Gosh, what's this smell?- one of the new kids said. They were three, and he didn't remember their names.

They found him sitting next to her counter.

- Are you alright?- they asked.

He didn't answer.

He took the candles up to her room and fell asleep.

**Day 47**

- _Apparently_ he used to be a scientist.- the ginger girl said. Her name was something like Amy. He didn't really care.

- What?- the other girl, the blonde one, asked.- Are you _sure?_ Mr. "I-Can-Kill-You-With-My-Thumb"?

It took him a moment to realize they were talking about him, and not Ward.

- Please, I bet he can't even recite the periodic table.- the other girl (three girls this time. He wondered if they were trying to prevent something like what had happened to him happening again) said. She was asian.

- No, I'm telling you, he used to be one of the top scientists. Something happened and he went mental.

The asian shrugged and got up.

- Don't start Annie. The dude is terrifying. He gives me the chills and he is most definitely not a scientist.

- I'll prove it to you.- the ginger one said.

He punched the bag eleven times before the song started in his head.

There's Hydrogen and Helium, then Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon everywhere, Nitrogen all through the air. With Oxygen so you can breathe, and Fluorine for your pretty teeth, Neon to light up the signs, Sodium for salty times. Magnesium, Aluminium, Silicon, Phosphorus, then Sulfur, Chlorine and Argon, Potassium, and Calcium so you'll grow strong, Scandium, Titanium, Vanadium and Chromium and Manganese.

He lasted until the chorus began.

That was _her_ part.

He punched 5 times for each tear that escaped his eyes.

This is the Periodic Table, noble gas is stable Halogens and Alkali react aggressively, each period will see new outer shells, while electrons are added moving to the right.

He could practically hear her voice.

**Day 53**

Ward asked if he could go on a field mission with him.

He said yes.

She wasn't in his room ready to tell him all the reasons why he shouldn't go.

She didn't make him a sandwich like she used to everytime they were on field.

He didn't eat during the three days of the mission.

**Day 67**

He got inside the lab when no one was there.

He looked at her counter (someone was using it now).

They made it all _wrong_.

The mirrors were set the wrong way, the tap was dripping, the Durham tubes were not stored properly.

He counted to 10 and left.

It wasn't his lab anymore.

**Day 72**

- And sometimes he goes into the lab when we are not there, and I mean, it's really fucking _weird_ if you ask me.- the asian girl said.

Skye was talking to the new girls, and he was in the kitchen. He could hear every word.

He heard Skye sighing.

- Look, just deal with it ok? I'm sorry if you guys don't like him but he is the sweetest, most caring person I've ever m-

- Him? _Fitz-Simmons_ is the "sweetest, most caring" guy you ever met? Gosh, you don't know many people, do you?

Skye didn't talk for a few seconds.

- What did you just call him?- she asked.

- Fitz-Simmons. Why? That's his name, isn't it?- one of them said.

- No, it's not. His name is Fitz.- Skye answered.

- So why did Ward say it was "Fitz-Simmons"?

- It _used_ to be.

- What? What do you mean? Who's Simmons then?

- Simmons was his best-friend. He was in love with her.

Two of the girls snorted, as if the thought of him ever loving something was way too absurd.

- Yeah, right. And what did she do? Ran away? Smart girl.

- Simmons d-

He walked into the room.

- She died.- he said.- She died 72 days ago, and it was my fault, if you are wondering.

They were all looking at him wide-eyed, including Skye. He never talked about it.

- How?- the ginger one asked.

He looked into her eyes and they were the same colour as hers.

- She jumped out of the plane to save us. I had the cure on my hands, but I didn't move fast enough.

**Day 75**

The new girls looked at him in a different way now.

They didn't complain about him using the lab anymore.

He didn't go there as often anyway.

He knew she wouldn't appear babbling about some new experiment and it made his heart beat differently.

**Day 80**

He looked so different he wondered if she would recognize him if she saw him on the streets.

Didn't matter. He would **always** recognize her.

**Day 83**

He practiced multi-focused attack today.

All it meant was that both Ward and Skye tried to kill him.

He immobilized both.

He didn't know if she would be proud or worried.

**Day 95**

Today was her birthday. He didn't get out of bed and his mind was a chaos of arrangements of her smile and her laugh and her voice and her face and her eyes and all their jokes and all the times she hugged him and all the times he almost told her and all the kisses they never shared and all his dreams about her.

The realization that he would never hear her again, or see her again, that he would never be able to tell her all his feelings, that she died without knowing how loved she really was.

That was killing his slowly.

He hugged her jumper and looked to their picture until her image was burned to his eyelids and the tears didn't blur it away.

**Day 103**

They were studying some old videos of some old missions today, when suddenly she appeared on the screen.

He almost fell off the bloody chair.

- Hello there!- she said, and the sound of her voice was like a whip to his back. Ward got up to stop it, but he told him to let it roll.- Alrighty then, this is experiment number 23790, but we just called it Sleeping Beaut-

- We called it The Night-Night Gun!- he was in frame now, and she half-laughed half-sighed and it made him want to _cry_.

- Okay then, lets just say we didn't find the right name yet.- she smiled to the camera and he felt like his heart had just stopped. The Fitz in the screen had disappeared.

- We did!- he yelled from somewhere.

- _**Fitz!**_- she called his name and he never thought a simple word could hurt this bad.- Excuse me but I'm trying to tape our new device, thank you.

- Yes ma'am, you are excused. You may proceed.- he heard the noise of the door opening and he remembered that he got out of the lab to get himself some food.

She laughed. Oh God, he missed that so much.

- You are impossible.- she whispered.- Just because I love you doesn't mean you can dance around the lab.- she added, so low he almost didn't hear it.

But he did, and he froze.

- Oh God.- he heard Skye saying.

- What did she say?- he asked.

The Simmons on the screen was talking about the hollow bullets but he couldn't focus.

- Ward take the tape out! Now!- Coulson shouted but he was still glued to his seat.

- Did that girl just tell to the camera that she _loved_ him?- the blonde new girl, Sasha, asked to the asian.

- Did Jemma just say that she _loved_ me?- he said it louder this time.

- Fitz, Fitz look at me.- Skye was calling but he didn't look at her.

To everyone's surprise, he started laughing.

- Did that just really _happen?_- he asked, so mad he couldn't keep himself from pacing. To _hell_ with her and her hatred for it.

He was laughing out of pure anger.

- Did _Jemma_- he kicked the center table, and it banged on the wall.- _just_ say- he directed his attention to the chairs now, and he flipped one of them.- that she _loved_ me?- he all but screamed the last part.

No one knew how to answer him.

- Did the girl I secretly loved for _5 bloody years_ just confessed to the _bloody camera_ that **she** loved **me?**

He punched one of the cabinets, and the glass made cuts on his hand.

- Fitz, calm down.- Ward said.

- Do you even realize what this _means_, Ward?- he snarled his way.- This means that I loved her, and she loved me, and _no one _did any bloody thing about it. It means that if I had told her that I loved her, **she would have said it back.** It means that _we could have been happy!_

- Fitz, if you'd just hear me o-

- But _no!_ Miss Simmons here had to jump out of the bloody _plane!_- he screamed to the air, completing with a vicious laugh.- Wh-who even does that? Who even _jumps out of a plane?_ Was she insane? Was she thinking straight?

- Fitz she did it to save us.- Skye said.

- To _save_ us? Do tell me, _who_ did she save? It wasn't me, that's for bloody sure! Did she save you? Are you happy she died?- he yelled, punching the marble kitchen counter.

- That's not what I said.- Skye looked hurt, but he couldn't care less.

- She _loved_ me, and with all that time we had been together, she didn't manage to tell me, not even once!

- Well, it's not like you had the guts to tell her.- Ward said in an accusing tone.

- Excuse me?- he replied, his voice telling the story of how mad he was.

- You never told her either.- Ward shrugged it off, as if it was nothing.

He couldn't find an answer to that.

He cried all the way to his room.

**Day 104**

For someone with such a high IQ, he couldn't fathom the reason why he had never even considered the possibility of her loving him back.

**Day 105**

- Oi, Simmons, remember that time during third year in the Academy that I spilled coffee on your favorite blouse? You were so mad. God, I thought you would rip my lungs out. You calmed yourself very quickly actually. You were never mad at me for long, now that I thought about it.

"I'm going insane."- he thought.- "I'm talking to her picture."

He didn't care one bit.

**Day 108**

He stole that video, the one where she said it.

He watched it about two hundred times by now.

He doesn't think he will stop anytime soon.

**Day 110**

He asks to leave the team.

He doesn't regret it, he tells himself.

Deep down, he can hear her voice asking him _why_.

He answers: _you left first._

**Day 116**

He just wanders around the halls of the Hub.

Some people point his way, and he hears the whispers.

"That's the guy that used to be from Coulson's team"

"This dude used to be a scientist, didn't he?"

"God, what the _hell_ happened to this chap? He looks like he is about to kill us all. Then himself."

"Oh, look, look! That's Fitz! You know, _Leo Fitz!_"

"You mean Fitz as in Fitz-Simmons' _Fitz?_"

"Yeah! That's him!"

"Jesus! Where the hell did Coulson send the poor bastard?"

He talked to Jemma most of the time.

**Day 120**

He goes on his first mission with people he has never met before.

The shootings and the punches and the kicks made her _yell_ in his head this time.

He smiles while she lectures him.

God, he missed her voice _so much._

**Day 127**

One week later he is out again.

This time they tell him to torture a man, so he does.

She screams until her voice sounds hoarse, and then she doesn't speak to him for 5 days. He promises to never do that again.

The next time they ask him to do it, he says no one is ever getting tortured under his watch.

He is Level 7 now and can actually say things like that.

She smiles in the back of his mind and he feels like he has _finally_ done something right in a long time

**Day 139**

He started to drink a lot.

He doesn't care.

She sounds more vivid -_more alive_- when he's drunk.

She is usually telling him to stop.

**Day 144**

He gets shot on a mission in Australia.

The way she cries makes him regret all his life decisions so far.

He promises he will take care next time, but she just shakes her head and stands just outside his reach.

He tries to touch her hair and falls out of bed.

He yells out in frustration.

**Day 156**

He was healing well.

She didn't believe him when he said it was alright.

She answered "look at yourself Fitz."

He did, and he couldn't understand what she was talking about.

She says "I can't even recognize you sometimes." and the way she hugs herself makes his heart break.

He tries to touch her but she is always standing _too far._

**Day 165**

He is now Level 8.

He wants to celebrate it with her.

Instead, he goes out to a pub alone and drinks himself unconscious.

**Day 176**

It was getting harder to catch her attention now.

He couldn't understand why.

He goes on another mission and he gets himself in as many fights as he can.

She doesn't say anything.

**Day 183**

- Didn't that guy used to be some sort of genius scientist?- one of the agents points to him.

There is a group of 4 boys from Level 3 talking in the cafeteria, and he tries to ignore their voices as he eats his pizza.

- Nah mate, you must be wrong. That right there is the best field agent S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever had!- one of them answers. So cockney it makes his ears hurt.

- No, really, he was part of Coulson's team and-

- Coulson's team? Dude, no way. If he was a part of Coulson's team he'd be dead by now.- this one is definitely from New Jersey.

- What ya mean?- the boy with the cockney accent asks him.

- Everyone from that team dies, bro.- he identifies the Los Angeles accent but the words stick to his mind. He doesn't care about being discreet anymore.

- What did you just say?- he asks the blond boy, who is sitting about three chairs from him. They are alone in the cafeteria and he notices that they noticed it too.

They all look terrified for a moment. He asks again, trying to keep calm.

- What did you just say about Agent Coulson's team?

The boy with dark hair answers him. He is the one with the cockney accent.

- It's just that a lot of people from that team died. There was a scientist last year, now his two field agents died and recently one of the new field agents died. Everyone says his team is cursed.

He can't get his mind around that piece of information.

- Ward and Skye died?- he lets out before he can controls himself.

- You knew them?- the boy from New Jersey asks eagerly.

In the back of his mind, Simmons is screaming so loud he can't concentrate.

- You were from that team, weren't you? You were one of the first scientists.- the latino kid asks.

He just nods in agreement while he is begging her to stay calm.

- Wait, your name is Fitz, isn't it? The Fitz from _Fitz-Simmons?_

He leaves without answering and he trips seven times before finding his room in the compound.

Hearing her cry was unbearable, specially when it was inside his own mind.

**Day 200**

He couldn't talk to her anymore.

He didn't feel her anymore.

He went on a mission with no extraction plan.

He doesn't understand why he is still alive.

**Day 218**

It was his birthday.

He couldn't care less.

Last year, she had made him a cake and although he said he didn't want anything and she was being silly, he loved her more than ever.

He missed her more than he could bear.

He drank so much he wakes up in the Hub's hospital.

They tell him to get his act together.

He wonders how he will do it if all the puzzle is broken and the pieces are missing.

**Day 230**

He goes to Paris on a mission.

He solemnly ignores the memory of the night she told him she would love to visit Paris someday.

He promised her he would take her there.

He considers nuking the Eiffel Tower.

**Day 243**

Her jumper didn't smell like her anymore.

He controls the need to cry.

Late that night, he goes to the lab and prepares the same "vanilla and green apple" scent he has memorized how to make.

**Day 260**

He sleeps with a girl that looks like her.

He can't remember her name (he called her _Jemma_ the whole time).

She leaves the hotel room when they are done and he gets sick at the idea that that girl might not even know the periodic table song.

He begs for her forgiveness but she doesn't answers him.

**Day 279**

He calls her a bitch for killing herself like that.

As soon as it leaves his mouth, he regrets it.

He spends the rest of the day on his bedroom floor looking at a photograph and telling her he is so sorry, so sorry,** so sorry**.

**Day 292**

He loses his key that was with her keychain attached to it.

He looks for it for 2 hours and when he can't find it, he goes out to buy another one.

He is told that they don't make keychains like that anymore.

He goes to a pub and gets in a fight with two guys over some baseball game.

He never watched baseball in his whole life.

**Day 309**

He goes to a mission in Russia and gets shot three times.

He is taken as a hostage and they try to torture him.

Her face is what he imagines the whole time.

He doesn't say a word during the 2 days they kept him there.

When they finally rescued him, the first thing they asked was what had he told them.

When he said "nothing", they asked him how.

He said:

- Simmons was there with me.

The last thing he hears is one of the agents asking the other who the hell is Simmons.

**Day 315**

They finally let him out of the ICU, and there are a few agents gathered in his new room to greet him.

He sends them all away as quickly as he can.

He is longing for the morphine that will make him dream of her voice.

**Day 323**

He is now Level 9.

They tell him that no one in the history of S.H.I.E.L.D. had made it that far in so little time.

He thanks them but he didn't even want this.

He would gladly be a Level 5 again, if he had her beside him.

Truthfully, he would give up pretty much anything to have her back.

"Pretty much anything". Who's he trying to fool? He would give his own life and a thousand more just to hear her saying his name again.

**Day 337**

He opens her notepad for the first time ever.

Her notes are mixed with entries of her days.

He finds the first hearts around his name a few pages in.

Then he reads it: "I wish I could just tell Fitz already. But the knowledge that he won't say it back to me makes my knees quiver and the thought of not being by his side scares me more than I allow myself to believe."

After three pages, he sees a lot of hearts, and she wrote right in the middle "Mrs. Leopold Fitz". Underneath that, she wrote: "this makes it sound so wrong. Like I'm his, but he is not mine. We are not Fitz or Simmons. We are Fitz-Simmons. We are two halves that make the whole." And she corrected it: "Mrs. Leopold Fitz-Simmons".

He ripped all the pages out.

How could a bloody biochemist know that before he did?

He smiles and he waits for her to correct him, to tell him that she is _every bit _as intelligent as he is, even more, and he waits and waits and _waits_, but she doesn't speak up.

He never felt so lonely in his whole life.

**Day 344**

He thought he had seen her, walking around the Hub with the genetic freaks, the ones that were mutated, and his heart almost stopped because what if they had brought her back?

He ran to the place that he had seen her, he never ran so fast, he made the turn and she wasn't there.

Stupid, so stupid.

Why was he still hoping?

**Day 352**

He thought he saw her again, but this time he didn't chase the image of her.

Then he thought he had heard someone calling his name, but he ignored it.

Then he goes to his room and Coulson is there, pacing, like he always did.

What was Coulson doing there?

- Oh good Fitz, finally! Where were you, everyone is looking for you!

He opens his mouth to answers but Coulson tells him to stay quiet.

- Listen, Fitz, there's great news! Great, great news! She didn't die!- he screams, and that's such an unusual behavior of Coulson he doesn't even register the words he says.

- Coulson, is everything alright?- he is concerned because the last guy he kinda cares about on this planet is losing it.

- Listen to me, Fitz! They brought her back! The scientists, they brought her back!

- _What?_- he asks, and he starts to feel light-headed.

- They made something and it _worked!_ **Simmons is alive!**- and then Coulson opens the door and Jemma is in there.

_Jemma_ is in there.

Jemma is in _there_.

Jemma.

Is.

In.

There.

He is not sure if he is able of articulating sentences, so he doesn't try to, he just hugs her, so tight, and he kisses her and she kisses back, and she is just smiling and laughing and telling him she loves him and he feels so happy he could die and everything is _perfect_ and she is _alive_ and _there_.

When he wakes up, he is crying.

Her jumper fell to the ground and he picks it up before going out of the room.

She's never coming back, and he knows it.

But his dreams don't.

**Day 361**

It's been almost a year.

He thinks about it, but he doesn't come up with any reasons to stay around for a while longer.

He can't hear her voice anymore.

He feels so sad he starts looking at his gun the same way he used to look at Jemma's hands.

**Day 366**

One year and one day.

He thinks the time he lasted will make her smile.

She liked quirky things with numbers and dates.

_God_, he can't wait to see her _smile_, and to touch her _face_, and to hear her _voice_, and to just be there -_wherever that is_- with her.

He unlocks the gun and he could've thought the sound was terrifying but it felt like coming **home.**

His hands were steady when he pulled the trigger.

/ **Final notes: **okayy then, that's it! Thank you guys for sticking through it. I'd love if you could spare a moment to review, but really, just reading it is already way more than I could ever hope for! I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I wrote this after a 20hrs long supernatural marathon so its not really perfect, so if you find any mistakes or typos os anything at all, let me know!

Besides that, to all the people that reviewed (5 so far): thank you, thank you, thank you, a billion times thank you! All the ones that were registered while reviewing got a pm, and to the only anonymous one: sorry it made you cry! I know it's really reaaaally dramatic, and that was kind of what I was aiming for, but still. And really, one of the best you've ever read? Now _you _are making me cry! Thank you so much, that means a lot to me! And just because you are the cutest person ever and you just made me feel really special with that review i will write the thing you asked, but i warn you: it will be extremely depressive (i recently found out i cant write up-beat stuff). Thank you a lot! You are the best!

To everyone else that is still reading: thank you and i hope you didn't think it was terrible.


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